The present invention relates generally to the air delivery of material. It is more particularly concerned with a new and improved apparatus and method for the air delivery of material for dispersion over a large but controlled ground area.
The dropping of supplies from an aircraft in flight to the ground below is well known. Generally, the supplies are either dropped individually and allowed to free fall to the ground or packed in a a container for controlled delivery of the container to the ground via a parachute. Both of these methods present problems. Materials and supplies which are air dropped individually will be spread over a large and almost impossible to control ground area. Thus, there is little likelihood that the majority of supplies or materials will arrive where needed. Materials and supplies packed in containers and dropped for controlled descent by a parachute have a somewhat better chance of being placed in a desired location. However, in a military situation, the centralized location of the materials within the container puts personnel at risk when they attempt to retrieve those materials. Further, in hilly or mountainous terrain the packaging of all of the materials within a single container may make placement of the container at any desired location an all or nothing situation. Naturally, for materials delivered by either method, the greater the altitude of the aircraft dropping the materials, the less certain will be the final ground location of the materials. This is of special concern in military operations where aircraft must fly at high altitudes to avoid enemy ground fire.